The Galleria is for sale. Here is what is actually confirmed.

If you live in Riverchase, the Galleria is not an abstraction. It is the thing you drive past, the reason Highway 31 backs up at Christmas, and a large share of the sales-tax base that pays for the city services you use. So when it went on the market, we started getting the question at the mailbox: is this good or bad for my house?

The honest answer is that it is too early to say. But there is a real difference between what has been confirmed and what is a consultant’s drawing, and that difference is worth understanding before you form an opinion.

What is confirmed

The Galleria was listed for sale in June 2026 through JLL, roughly 40 years after it opened on February 19, 1986, developed by Jim Wilson Jr. of Jim Wilson & Associates (Bham Now).

The listing is not the entire property. It covers about 1.5 million square feet of leasable space, nearly 150 stores and two parking decks, and it includes Von Maur, Belk Home and Dave & Buster’s. It specifically excludes Macy’s, JCPenney, Costco, Home Depot, The Offices at 3000 Riverchase and the Hyatt (Bham Now). Those are separately owned, which matters a great deal to how any redevelopment could actually proceed.

In a July interview, Mayor Nick Derzis said he flew to Chicago in January to meet the mall’s ownership, that ownership had done nothing to improve the mall in five to seven years, and that a new owner could be in place “as early as September” and “definitely by the end of the year” (WBHM).

No buyer has been publicly identified, and no closed sale has been reported. If you hear a name attached to this, treat it as rumor until the city or the seller says it out loud. We will not repeat one here.

Why the city cares so much

The financial pressure behind all of this is documented. Reporting in January put the cost of the mall’s decline to Hoover at roughly $9 million a year in lost revenue, with annual visits falling from 63 million to 42 million by 2024 and sales-tax revenue down 41% since 2007 (AL.com).

That is a January figure, so read it as the scale of the problem rather than today’s exact number. But it explains why a mayor spends his own time flying to meet a mall’s owners.

What is only a concept

Here is where a lot of neighborhood conversation goes off the rails.

The city commissioned a $200,000 market assessment from Hunden Partners. That study proposes a Phase One that would demolish the former Sears and build 282 apartments, 28,000 square feet of retail, an 1,100-seat performing arts center and a 25,000-square-foot plaza. A Phase Two would demolish the Macy’s box and a triangular corridor for 260 apartments, 16,000 square feet of retail and a 19,000-square-foot plaza (Bham Now, February; Bham Now, June).

The city describes the deliverable as the Hunden Partners “Riverchase Galleria Redevelopment Executive Summary & Final Analysis,” and lists supporters including Brookfield Properties, Jim Wilson & Associates, Associa McKay Management and the Hyatt Regency Birmingham–The Wynfrey Hotel, along with Cooper Carry and Hoar Construction (City of Hoover).

That is a study, not an approval. No rezoning, no site plan, no building permit. The Macy’s box is not part of the listing, so Phase Two depends on a separate owner agreeing to something. Anyone telling you apartments are coming to the Galleria is describing a proposal, not a decision.

What we would actually watch

We are not going to tell you what this does to your home value, because nobody knows yet and anybody who claims otherwise is selling something. What we watch instead:

• Whether a sale actually closes, and to whom. An owner who develops is a different future than an owner who holds. The mayor’s September timeline is a projection, not a contract.
• The first rezoning or conditional-use filing. That is the moment a concept becomes a real proposal with a public hearing you can attend. Until something appears on a Planning and Zoning agenda, there is nothing to react to.
• Whether the residential component survives. Roughly 542 apartments across both phases is the single most debated number in that study, and it is the one most likely to change.
• The separately owned anchors. Macy’s, JCPenney, Costco and Home Depot are not in the listing. Their decisions will shape this as much as the mall’s new owner will.

In the meantime, the Galleria is still hosting the neighborhood. The city will mark the 25th anniversary of September 11 with a remembrance ceremony at 9 a.m. on Saturday, September 12 in the Galleria Food Court, followed by a “Climb to Remember” stair climb in the Galleria Towers equivalent to 110 stories, benefiting the Hoover Public Safety Charity Foundation (City of Hoover). The council also approved an agreement with Hoover Mall Limited for a community art display at the mall back in May (City of Hoover resolutions).

We will update this post when a sale is confirmed. If you want to know what a specific change would mean for a specific street in Riverchase, that is a conversation we are happy to have — we live here too.